Posts Tagged ‘My Little Grass Shack’
-
The Last Day of August
0September 1, 2017 by admin
It was a warm and breezy Thursday. The roses at the Women’s Gate have started making hips. Behind the benches, gomphrena is king. Farther down the path, past the browning chestnut tree, the wood anemones have started to bloom, each with a single white flower.
The cowboy was finishing up at Bethesda Fountain. He played “Your Song” (Elton John, 1970), while I waited in the shade. A 50-something woman standing near me hummed along as she fished money from her purse. For his final number, “Would You Know My Name” (Eric Clapton, 1992), I moved into the sun near the fountain and began to set up. People there were humming too. I waited a bit before starting my set, in order to let the vibe of dead children dissipate.
It was a slow start, but eventually a flock of kids from Mexico ran up to dance the hula. One of them threw 86 cents into my case. At the end of “The Hukilau Song,” their mom kicked in a fiver.
A dad with an 11-month-old baby in a stroller was talking on the phone when he noticed his baby’s bobbing to the rhythm of “Get Out and Get Under the Moon.” He rewarded me with $2. A woman, who had been sitting near me, threw me some small change as she got up to leave. A man who had been listening from the benches gave me a buck.
A 40-something woman walked by with her 9-year-old daughter. “Have you got time for a hula today?” She kept walking, then turned to me. “Change your mind?” I said.
“No, no hula, but I will listen. Play me something.”
I launched into “Little Grass Shack.” After the last humahumanukanukaapuaa swam by, she gave me $2.
A 60-something woman stopped to talk. “I have to ask,” she said. “Are you a retired New York City school teacher?”
“Close,” I said. “I am retired.”
“I could tell that from the smile on your face. You’re really good with the kids.”
“Are you retired?”
“I’ve got 2 more years. I hope to be as happy as you are.”
When she walked off, a man approached, opened his wallet and took out his Hawaiian driver’s license. He was originally from Puerto Rico, had grown up in NYC, and had been living in Maui for the last 7 years. “Love the hukilau,” he said, then made canoe-paddling motions as he danced off.
Finally, a couple lurking just out of sight around the fountain breezed by and dropped a buck, ending the month with another $12.60 to show for it.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Get Out and Get Under the Moon, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song, Would You Know My Name, Your Song
-
A Fine Day for a Hula
0August 9, 2017 by admin
After another long vacation, I returned to the park on a cool, wet day, that evolved into a beautiful sunlit outing at Bethesda Fountain. The vibes were strange today. No guitarist picked through the Beatles’ repertoire at the Imagine Mosaic. No combo set up across the road from Daniel Webster. There seemed to be no music in the park at all. The road to Cherry Hill was clogged with police cars, with more police cars parked on the grass and across the road, where clusters of color-coded kids gathered around snack tents, or sat in tight circles on the lawn. It was Police Appreciation Day, or some such event I was told. Five hundred kids were gathered, each of whom appeared to have arrived in his own police car.
Walking down the western stairs, I was relieved to see that Bethesda Fountain was free of the no music/heavy police presence vibe. I opened with “Making Love Ukulele Style.”
I spotted a willowy short-haired woman weaving to the music. She was 30 yards or more away, but with each song she got closer. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
She was thrilled to be invited and danced a vigorous, interpretive hula that attracted a crowd. When a mom and daughters from Ohio stopped to watch, my hula dancer threw leis over their heads and egged them on, through yet another iteration of “The Hukilau Song.” There was raucous laughter at the end of the dance. Dad from Ohio counted out some singles and put them in my case. My dancer ran off to meet the photographer she’d been waiting for. I called her back to learn she was a model from Turkmenistan. “I love New York,” she said.
A girl came by with 50 cents, but would not hula. A gray-haired man pushing a stroller with his toddler stopped to listen. Out of the stroller, the boy bobbed his head and bent his knees to the music. Dad gave me a fiver.
It was a good day for teen-aged girls. A dollar here, a quarter there, hula dancers everywhere. A tour group came by and the leader gave me a dollar. Her name was Dina. She said she’d heard me play many times and wanted me to know how much she enjoyed it.
A group of Israeli teens sat around the fountain for a photo. It was their last day in New York. The boys would not hula, but the girls, pushing first one girl forward, then another, finally decided they would all hula together. One of the boys joined them. As graceful as the girls were, the boy was stiff and awkward, like Frankenstein’s monster on Waikiki. I got a couple of dollars in donations, plus a coin worth 1/10 of a new shekel, a little less than 3 cents.
A Pakistani contingent came next. Like the Israelis they sat for photos and giggled among themselves about dancing, but they did not dance. When they gathered to leave, they too threw some bills my way.
At the end of my set, with over $25 in my case, I played my closing number, “Little Grass Shack,” for Isabella, from Virginia. She danced a joyful hula, handed back the lei and ran to her parents, who turned and walked away.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Making Love Ukulele Style, My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
-
Hulapalooza
0June 29, 2017 by admin
After more than a week, I made my way back to the park. At the entrance, the pink begonias and a swath of green and white lamium were doing well, and, behind the benches, the workhorse roses, pink and red, provided great color. At the Imagine Mosaic, one of the platoon guitarists was between songs. He looked up as I passed. “I got the same shirt,” he said.
“It’s the original Tom Selleck, Magnum PI,” I said.
Under the gaze of Daniel Webster, another cloud of spent clover rose above the lawn.
Center stage was mine. I’d barely tuned up when 2 tweens stopped to hula. In quick succession, another girl of about the same age, from DC, wanted to hula, then 2 cousins from Idaho took a turn. I had $5 in my case before I came home from the hukilau, and started my set in earnest.
A teenage girl walked by and dropped 60 cents. She turned out to be one of the few today who did not hula.
A girl of 9 or 10 showed some interest, but when I asked if she had time for a hula, she shook her head no, only to return a short while later to say, “I changed my mind.” She was from Puerto Rico. She danced with a rocking motion, laughing all the while her mom took pictures. For a change of pace, I sang “My Little Grass Shack.” Mom contributed $2.
A young teen danced and walked away. She came back with 4 quarters.
A group of 10 kids talked each other into a group dance. I tore open a new package of leis to accommodate them. One of them, a slender girl named Hallie, was pushed to the front, where she led the group in a sinewy interpretation of “The Hukilau Song.” She said she was from Colombia. “The country, not South Carolina.” Another few dollars floated into my case.
A Russian man and his family were enchanted by my solar-powered hula girls. “How much?”
“Five dollars,” I told him. He started to bargain, but I held firm, and showed him the plastic shell that would protect it in his luggage. He picked up the pink doll, which was broken. I took it from him and showed his son how it worked, while the man contemplated the green or the yellow. By this time, the enchantment had faded. “If you really like these, you can probably get 2 for 5 on the internet,” I told him.
He laughed and said, “Thank you for your honesty.” They walked off, but the man soon came back with a dollar for my time.
A young girl sat at the edge of the fountain with a book. “Have you got time for a hula today?”
“Maybe later,” she said, “with my sister.”
A girl from Nashville went to the hukilau, and a short time later 2 more dancers from Nashville did the same.
A Mexican boy danced at his mother’s insistence. Behind her camera, she swayed to the music, while the boy rather woodenly flapped his arms.
In addition to the saffron-robed begging Buddhists, who shove prayer flags in peoples’ hands, Bethesda Fountain is also home to teenage boys selling candy for playground equipment. One of them bopped up to me and said, “I got lots of change for you, bud.”
Five girls from Staten Island stopped to hula. “What fun,” one of them said, taking a single from her purse. Perhaps some of the others had also made donations, but I didn’t notice, because the young girl who had been reading returned with her sister. Each of them had a dollar for me.
Toward the end of my set, the sisters came back with their mom. “I didn’t get a chance to take a picture,” she said. I put leis back on them and posed for the shot, after which mom put another dollar in my case.
I counted $25.02, my second best take of the season. Judged by the number of hulas danced, however, it was an all-time high.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: My Little Grass Shack, The Hukilau Song
